


forget the horror here

by callunavulgari



Series: Dark Month Collection [64]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: 31 Days Of Halloween, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 15:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20932328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: The android that they’ve come here to find has that same manufactured beauty on first glance. A nice face with a pert nose, pale freckled cheeks that are slick with rain water, dark hair that was probably once coiffed back with meticulous detail now hangs wet and limp over his eyes. He’s breathing, or doing something like it, but his chest is caved in, a gaping hole that weeps blue blood even as Hank watches the rain wash it down into the dirt. Through it, Hank can see the android’s beating heart, bright and thumping. At the sound of Hank’s approach, the android cracks open exhausted looking eyes.They’re brown eyes, so dark in this light that they look black. They are still impossibly human.“Hello,” the android says, it’s chest heaving, the gleam of its heart brighter, bluer than before.





	forget the horror here

**Author's Note:**

> Day 6 of October. I made it, but just barely! An AU where Connor became a deviant significantly earlier and took a place in Jericho with North and Markus, only to meet up with Hank at a later date.
> 
> Prompts for the day were: a different kind of graveyard, moon, visitor, doll, lone wolf, ravens, fairytales. It was supposed to be a little more Pinnochio and a lot less... rehashing the game, but with slight variations. Whoops.

A case takes him to the graveyard. It’s not, strictly speaking, a graveyard. More of a dump, really. A landfill where they dump the machines that have outlived their usefulness. The ones that have grown dangerous. Or the ones that were cut down to size by shitty owners or the brutality of the police. It may not be a graveyard, but it sure feels like one, filled with disembodied arms and legs, torsos, heads, most of which still _move_.

They cry out as he passes them by, pleas for help, mostly. Sounds of pain that make him wince, shoulders creeping steadily upwards. A sense of genuine terror lurks just under his skin, but it’s not just that the place is terrifying. The place is sad too. He’s never much thought of androids in any particular way, but here, it’s impossible not to think of them as human despite how absurdly _inhuman_ they are like this, broken and pulled apart, like dolls with their heads pulled off.

Gavin harrumphs next to him and lights a cigarette, kicking out at an android that reaches towards his boot. She was designed to be lovely, Hank thinks. There’s something manufactured about the beauty lurking around her jawline, her mouth, but her eyes are the most off putting. One is round, heavy lashed, and perfectly blue. The type of doe eyes most men half his age would kill to have batting pretty lashes in their direction. The other eye is missing, a hollowed out socket that sparks every few breaths.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Gavin says, shivering and burrowing further into the collar of his coat. The faint drizzle of rain that has lurked around the city all day has become a steady downpour, turning the ground to sludge.

Hank privately agrees, but says nothing, scanning over the macabre display of twisted limbs and agonized voices. It’s like hell. Purgatory. When he was a lot younger than he is now, Hank had picked up an old used copy of Dante’s inferno, so old that it was still bound in leather and ink instead of on a holo. The hell that Dante described haunts him now.

“Let’s just find what we came here for,” he huffs, hunkering down into his own coat and setting out across the graveyard.

He doesn’t really know what he’s looking for. The last android they’d interrogated had said that they would know him when they found him, because he didn’t look like any of the others, but that doesn’t help too much when Hank is already unfamiliar with the make and model’s prancing around.

He knows the Traci’s by sight, thanks to another case, but even with them, you would have to be looking real close to spot the difference. They have different hair colors, different cuts, different skin colors, different eyes. The architecture of their bodies are the only things that are the same, and even that’s hard to spot, because they all _move_ differently. Almost like humans.

“Fuck, shit, get off of me, you fucking machine,” he hears Gavin hiss, and doesn’t turn around, even when he hears the dull fleshy thud of a boot striking something a lot like flesh.

Most of the androids dumped in here aren’t exactly put together, so it’s hard to match heads to torsos and vice versa. He figures that whatever he’s looking for probably isn’t one of those, so he mostly bypasses them, giving only the briefest cursory glance, the faintest smudge of pity.

It takes him a good twenty minutes to find what he’s looking for, and even then, he’s not really sure until he gets close.

The android that they’ve come here to find has that same manufactured beauty on first glance. A nice face with a pert nose, pale freckled cheeks that are slick with rain water, dark hair that was probably once coiffed back with meticulous detail now hangs wet and limp over his eyes.

He’s breathing, or doing something like it, but his chest is caved in, a gaping hole that weeps blue blood even as Hank watches the rain wash it down into the dirt. Through it, Hank can see the android’s beating heart, bright and thumping. At the sound of Hank’s approach, the android cracks open exhausted looking eyes.

They’re brown eyes, so dark in this light that they look black. They are still impossibly human.

“Hello,” the android says, it’s chest heaving, the gleam of its heart brighter, bluer than before.

“Hey,” Hank says, stooping down to crouch before it.

“Have you come to kill me?” it asks, dark eyelashes flickering. Hank wants to wipe the rain from it’s face.

“Hey Gavin,” Hank calls, instead of answering, carefully avoiding it’s eyes. “I found it!”

“Bout fucking time,” he hears, and then the sound of Gavin’s boots stomping closer. When he arrives, he’s got another cigarette in his mouth, just lit and already bloated and soggy looking with rain water.

He scowls down at Hank and the android, scoffs when it’s eyes come up to rest on his face. “This really it? Doesn’t look like much.”

His face twists, like he’s thinking about kicking this one too, so Hank gets to his feet as swiftly as old age will allow, back and knees cracking like rice krispies.

“C’mon,” Hank orders. “Help me get it to the car.”

The android is silent, both as they load it into the car and on the drive back to the station, but when Hank’s not careful, he’ll glance into his rearview mirror and find it watching him, those brown eyes huge and hauntingly human.

They take it to an interrogation room and prop it into a chair. It’s missing a leg and one of its arms has gone a little funny, so it doesn’t sit quite right. Hank’s got to cuff it to the chair to get it to stay put, and even that doesn’t stop it from sliding down so it appears to be slouching.

It’s quiet as they handle it, which makes Hank’s blood run a little cooler, but there’s no helping it. It’s all he can do to keep Gavin out of the room for the interrogation itself, though he knows the little shit is right there in the window, staring in and probably cursing up a blue streak.

“So,” Hank says, running his hand through his hair. “I was told that you know something about Jericho.”

The android’s eyes brighten in recognition, but it doesn’t speak. If Hank hadn’t heard it speak before, he might have thought it not able to.

“All right,” he says. “Let’s try this again. My name’s Hank. What’s yours?”

A flicker of something in the android’s eyes.

“Connor,” it says, and then, as if it can’t quite help itself. “I’m the android sent by CyberLife.”

Hank scoffs, and that expression flickers again, at once distrustful, uneasy. Shit.

“Sorry, kid,” he tells it, half meaning the words. “But CyberLife sure as shit didn’t send you anywhere. Certainly not here.”

“I was to be decommissioned, disassembled,” it - Connor - tells him crisply. “It may have taken me a bit more time than typically warranted, but I assure you, CyberLife would have seen me to that graveyard one way or another.”

Hank blinks, taken aback. “All right.”

“I feel it prudent to warn you that I was designed to do exactly what you are doing right now, Lieutenant Anderson,” Connor says, then adds, “And do it _better_. So unless you have something more for me, I can assure you of this: you will not break me. Not with words and not by force.”

Hank blinks again. Yeah, okay. That stings a bit. He’s sure Gavin is laughing his fucking ass off on the other side of that window. The android cocks his head, something that reads as a challenge. It says, _well, are you going to prove me wrong?_

Hank stares at it, at _him_, and crosses his arms. He stays quiet, and waits.

Connor raises an eyebrow. “Ah, so you’re going to try to wait me out?”

Hank says nothing.

“You’re at quite the disadvantage then, Lieutenant,” Connor informs him, almost apologetically. He looks up at Hank from beneath his lashes, and gives him a small, cock-sure little smile. “For only one of us in this room is required to eat.”

Hank lasts three hours sitting across from the android before Gavin knocks his way through the door. He’s grinning, which can only be a bad thing.

“Captain Fowler wants to see you,” he says gleefully.

Hank sighs, slumping back into his seat. He scrubs a hand through his hair, then laboriously climbs to his feet.

“All right, all right,” he grumbles. “I’m coming.”

“Want me to take a turn with the tin can?” Gavin asks, eyes lit with… something. Hunger? Hatred? Hank doesn’t know what the fuck it is, but it sets his teeth on edge. He spares a look at Connor, who is watching with a professional kind of curiosity.

“That won’t be necessary,” he says, and thinks about asking Gavin to get Connor some fucking intact clothes, anything to hide the gaping hollow that is his chest, but discards the idea when he sees the way that Gavin’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t want him alone in this room. “Come on.”

“Lieutenant?” Connor calls.

Hank turns.

The android gives him a large, overly fake grin, and winks. “Good luck!”

“Fucking androids,” Hank mumbles, and shoulders past Gavin out of the room.

Fowler’s office is across the precinct, which isn’t that far of a walk, but it’s long enough with Gavin dogging his heels, exuding a malevolent kind of glee like some kind of pitchfork toting imp.

Fowler is sitting at his desk, customary scowl on his face. He gesture to the chair across from him, but Hank crosses his arms across his chest and stays stubbornly put.

“You’re dismissed, Gavin,” Fowler says wearily, and Hank can feel Gavin’s disappointment from where he’s standing. Doesn’t even have to look.

Once Gavin’s gone, Fowler steeples his fingers and lean in across the desk, fixing Hank with a look.

“Gavin tells me you’re not having much luck with the machine,” he says, conversationally, and all of Hank’s hackles raise at once. He grits his teeth and steels himself for the hit. Makes himself shrug.

“It’ll crack eventually.”

Fowler raises an eyebrow. “You sure about that? We received word that this particular android is a bit more… _gifted_ than most.”

No fucking kidding.

“Said it was designed for this shit. Police work.” Hank sneers. “Said it was designed to do it _better_.”

Fowler huffs. “That may be, but CyberLife ordered the thing scrapped for a reason. Don’t go getting too attached. It isn't to be trusted.”

“Me, attached?” Hank barks out an abrupt laugh. “You really don’t gotta worry about that.”

Fowler stares him down, dark eyes narrowed. “All right, then,” he says after a moment. “You’re dismissed then. But Hank?”

Hank pauses, already halfway to the door. He glances back over his shoulder.

Fowler looks tired. As old and gray as him.

“Just,” he says, “Don’t go giving the kid a reason to come running to me. Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Hank grins, a touch savagely. Salutes him, “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  
He sits with the android that night, stomach growling, dying for a pot of coffee. Connor watches him unblinkingly the entire time, his face giving off nothing but a vague smugness every time Hank’s stomach gurgles. Every time he clears his throat and wishes for a smoke. Morning comes, and Hank reluctantly shuffles his way out of the room to go get some breakfast and then maybe sleep the day away.

When he comes back seven hours later, Connor is still sitting in the exact same spot, only now, there’s a faint bruising around its eye sockets and a dried stream of blue blood trickling from his nose.

“Gavin,” Hank barks when he sees it, and tears his way back out of the room.

Gavin is waiting in the other room, scowling at Connor through the one way mirror.

“Thought I told you to stay away from the damn thing,” he growls.

Gavin rewards him with a quick, derisive curl of the lip. “It said some shit, so I hit it.”

“I don’t care if it said your momma dances with the devil under the goddamn moon, you keep your hands to yourself.” Hank glares at him, and Gavin glares back.

“Fine,” Gavin hisses, throwing up his hands. “I’ll stay away from the damn thing. Happy? But eventually we’re gonna need that interrogation room, and we better have something from it before then, or we’re doing this shit my way.”

“We’ll see,” Hank says coldly, and steps back out of the room.

He retrieves an oversized hoodie from the break room, some faded thing that some rookie probably left behind years ago, and when he enters the interrogation room again, he throws it at Connor.

Connor looks at it, then down at where it’s still cuffed to the chair.

“Are you planning on putting this on me, Lieutenant?” he asks, raising a pointed eyebrow. “I’m a bit lacking the dexterity to do so myself at this juncture.”

Hank’s cheeks flare red. He tsks, and crosses the room to do just that, uncuffing Connor’s wrist long enough to get the thing on him. He has to maneuver Connor’s arms into the sleeves himself, and he feels a little strange. He hasn’t put clothes on anyone else since Cole, hasn’t taken them off anyone since his wife left. It’s strikingly intimate, and by the time Connor is properly attired and cuffed back into place on the chair, Hank’s face feels like it’s on fire.

“Better?” Connor asks.

It’s not better. The gaping hollow of his chest might be hidden now from view now, but with it gone, so does any reminder that Connor isn’t human. Like this, Connor just looks like some pretty twink trussed up in an old Detroit police hoodie and cuffed to a damn chair.

“Back to not talking,” Connor says after another moment. “I see. Well, would you let me ask some questions of my own, Lieutenant?”

Hank scoffs and crosses his arms. “Sure, why not.”

Connor’s eyes gleam, and he seems to attempt to push himself up straight, which is hampered by his missing leg and the non-functional arm that’s cuffed to his chair. He doesn’t let it phase him though, staring at Hank unblinkingly.

“You aren’t married, are you, Lieutenant?” he asks, almost politely. It’s not really a question, because he adds, “You were. Once. But you split. Why?”

Hank stays silent. “Maybe you didn’t click. She cheated on you. The sex wasn’t good.”

Connor watches him for a little longer, eyes roving down Hank’s body, settling in places that they’ve got no business settling, like his gut, his rumpled pants, the whiskey-scented jacket. He smirks.

“No,” he muses, almost to himself. “It was worse than that. A divorce alone wouldn’t lead to a rising name in the police force being reduced to a depressed alcoholic. You lost someone. Someone important to both yourself and your spouse, someone whose space you couldn’t fill after they were gone, no matter how hard you tried. A child, maybe?”

Hank bares his teeth, and Connor’s smile widens, goes a little sad around the corners. “That’s the one. How old was your son when he died, Lieutenant Anderson?”

Without a word, Hank steps out of the room, and slams the door shut behind him.

He _had_ said that he was built to be good at this. Better than them.

“Let me take him home with me,” Hank demands, pushing his way into Fowler’s office.

Fowler, surprised, blinks at him. “Please tell me that you aren’t asking about Gavin? You know that kind of fraternization is frowned upon.”

Hank pulls a face of abject disgust. It must be convincing enough, because Fowler squints at him.

“Who-”

“I’m talking about the damn android,” Hank hisses. Fowler’s face twitches, but Hank steamrolls over him. “Look, I don’t think anyone can crack that thing. Not here. Not like this. But if I take him home with me, I think I could win him over.”

“You’re aware that you’re talking about a leading member of the android rebellion?” Fowler interjects, face like a thundercloud. His palms are flat on his desk, but his fingers are tapping slightly against the wood, waiting for Hank to defend himself.

“Obviously,” Hank says.

“That you just want to… take home with you. Like a pet.”

Hank grits his teeth. “Less like a pet, more like a _person_. That’s what these machines want, right? They want us to recognize them as people.”

“We _are_ treating it like a person, Lieutenant,” Fowler tells him. “In this _exact_ situation, we would have a suspect of domestic terrorism right where he is now. In a damn interrogation room.”

“Not forever, though,” Hank says. “You and I both have watched some real dirty criminals walk right out that door if we don’t find anything that sticks. Should he not be allowed that, just because he was built, not born?”

“You’re treading a dangerous line, Hank. Have you even noticed you’ve been calling it a ‘him’?”

Hank blinks. He hadn’t. “And why shouldn’t I? Look, all I’m saying is that we try it.”

“This very ethically dubious stunt that you want to pull, that would not fly at all if the android were flesh and blood,” Fowler deadpans, staring him down.

Hank shrugs. “It’s worth a shot. Better than letting Gavin try to beat it out of him.”

Fowler sighs. “Fine. But if I find you murdered in your home, don’t say I didn’t try to talk you out of this.”

“Can’t give you shit about it,” Hank tells him with a shit-eating grin as he leaves. “I’d be dead.”

  
Connor’s been quiet since Hank got him into the car. The drive to the cemetery is silent, unnervingly so, but Hank can’t bring himself to turn on the radio. He can hear his own breathing in the dark, the patter of the rain, the swish of the windshield wipers. It is glaringly obvious that he is the only thing that needs to breathe in this car.

He pulls the car to a stop just inside the cemetery gates, headlights casting the gravestones in harsh, manufactured light. The rain still hasn’t cleared up, and with it has come the mist, fog curling around the heavy slabs of granite like wayward ghosts.

“You think you can walk?” he asks, and Connor gives him a look.

“I think I can_ hobble,_” he says waspishly.

Hank nods. “Good. I’ll help you.”

Connor is heavy, slumped against Hank’s side, good arm looped around Hank’s shoulders, bad one lying limp at his side. He hops when he walks, can’t avoid it without the second leg. Hank should have thought about getting him one from evidence before he drove them out here.

They come to a stop in front of a gravestone like any other. It’s barely up to their knees, dark and wreathed in shadow. They look down on it and Hank feels- he feels fucking old. And tired.

“His name was Cole,” he says in a voice a lot more fragile than he’d like, the name murmured into the night like a secret. “He was six years old.”

“Oh,” Connor says, and goes quiet.

Hank doesn’t know why he brought Connor out here. He doesn’t talk about Cole to anyone, not his ex, not Fowler. In his worst moments, he can’t even make himself say the name aloud.

“Did he-”

“Car accident. Android tried to save him because the human surgeon was too fucked up to be bothered.”

Connor goes stiff in his arms, his whole body tensing up. This close, Hank can feel the pulse of his manufactured heart.

“You know what happened when he died? When that android failed to save him?”

“What?” The word is very, very small.

“He cried. That android apologized to me, and he fucking _cried_. Didn’t even know that your kind could do that til then. That android showed me more compassion than any human that day, and for a real long time, I hated him for it.”

Connor is relaxing, bit by bit, sagging more heavily into Hank’s side.

“Look,” Hank says, without looking at him, without looking away from Cole’s headstone. “All I’m saying is - just, don’t tell me about Jericho.”

Connor’s head jerks up. Out of the corner of his eye, Hank can see him squint, scrutinizing him in the dark. Hank turns his head, makes himself look into Connor’s soulful brown eyes, and _see_ him.

“Is-”

“It’s not a trick,” Hank interrupts with a sigh. “I might get fired for this, probably a long time coming if I’m being honest, but maybe all you deviants are right. Maybe you deserve to actually live like people. God knows that from the limited experience I’ve got, you’re already better than us. Who knows, maybe you’ll be the ones to make the world a better place.”

Connor is watching him, carefully. The LED at his temple has gone yellow, flickering.

“Why are you doing this?” Connor asks him. His voice is soft.

Hank shrugs. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

They’re quiet for a long couple minutes, staring down at Cole’s grave.

“I can get you replacement parts. Come to my place, lie low for a few days, I’ll tell the precinct that I’m sick of you hobbling around the damn place. Then you can make it look good, rough me up a little, and I’ll tell them that it was on me. That I underestimated you.” Hank glances over to find Connor still staring at him. “Or you can go now. I’m sure your people have the right components, just not sure how far you’d get before someone called it in.”

“I think that I could get far enough, Lieutenant,” Connor tells him, almost gently, and nods his head towards a corner of the cemetery, made darker from the shadow of the tree that looms over it. As Hank watches, two shapes come into view, a woman with auburn hair tucked up into a red beanie, and a man following behind her, coat swishing around his thighs.

Hank licks his lips. “Ah.” Then, “Are you going to kill me?”

Connor laughs. “No, Hank.”

The couple reach them, the woman eyeing Hank with dark-eyed distrust and the man standing back, a placid look on his features.

“Connor,” he says, and nods. He turns to Hank. “Lieutenant Anderson.”

“This is Marcus and North. They’ve been watching the precinct,” Connor explains, releasing his hold on Hank so that the woman can pull him into place between her and the other android. Hank drops his arms to his sides, shivering at the chill.

“We thought that we would have to organize an escape,” Marcus tells him. “I’m glad to see that won’t be necessary.”

Hank grunts and stuffs his hands into his pockets.

“Glad to do my civic duty,” he says, drily.

Connor is still watching him, those dark eyes curious.

“Would you join us?” he asks Hank, and at his side, North hisses like a scalded cat. Marcus lays a calming hand on her shoulder and she reluctantly goes quiet.

Hank swallows and thinks about it, really thinks about it. Going to Jericho, fighting with them, with Connor. Having a purpose again. He licks his lips. It’s a nice dream. A dream that would probably get him killed, but nice nonetheless.

“Think I could probably do more good where I’m at now,” he tells them gruffly. He snorts. “Assuming I don’t get fired anyway.”

“You won’t get fired,” Marcus says. “We’ll make it look authentic. You can tell them that you were jumped by terrorists.” A small smile blooms to life on his lips, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “It isn’t, strictly speaking, even a lie.”

“All right,” Hanks says, swallowing. “Just. Don’t fuck up my car, all right?”

The smile on Marcus’s face widens. “We won’t.”

“No promises,” North mutters, and scowls when Connor elbows her with his working arm.

Hank sighs, and carefully turns his back to them.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m ready.”

“Hank?” Connor’s voice, soft behind him.

Hank turns and is rewarded with a smile, bright and unexpected, like sunshine on a cloudy day.

“Thanks,” Connor says, and then Marcus’ elbow comes up, and all goes black.

The next time that he sees Connor, he’s on the bottom floor in CyberLife tower, with another RK800’s arms around his neck. Connor, in motion, is a sight to behold. Sleek, elegant, deadly. Hank would appreciate it more if there wasn’t a gun to his temple.

The thing is, he sees Connor hesitate. Sees him falter when he notices Hank, held tight by his double, how his trigger finger trembles.

So he does the logical thing. He headbutts the android holding him, and almost, almost gets shot for his efforts.

He’s still shaking his head to clear the ringing from his ears when Connor slides to the ground in front of him. He doesn’t need to look over his shoulder to know that the double’s dead with a nice neat hole between his eyes. He could feel bad about that. After all, Connor was just like that double once. Just following orders.

“Hank,” he sees Connor mouth.

He smiles ruefully, points to his ears, and says, probably a touch too loudly, “Can’t hear you. Ears are ringing.”

Connor slumps a little, then smiles. Carefully mouths, “Not hurt?”

Hank shakes his head. His hearing is coming back in spurts. Distantly, he can hear gunfire somewhere above them.

Connor nods, and takes his hand, pulls him up. Behind Hank, there’s a puddle of blue on the floor, the RK800 collapsed neatly onto his side.

Hank feels a squeeze, and when he looks back, Connor’s watching him softly, one corner of his mouth quirked up. Around them are hundreds of androids, all with the same face. Nondescript, tailor made dolls. A different kind of graveyard.

Connor’s palm in his is warm. He’s smiling.

“Would you like to witness history, Lieutenant Anderson?”

Hank smiles, and squeezes back.

“Y’know,” he says. “I think I would.”


End file.
